Everyone's Got Something
by LemurLou
Summary: A look at the pasts of the PPTH doctors. There are some ships. I've tried to create snapshots to help people understand why these doctors are the people they are today.


**Chapter 6**

Don't say a word. It is chapter six. The truth is, I can start at any chapter I want. Beat that. I bet you're just jealous. Jealous because you aren't in a position to tell this story. Jealous because I am.

So let's get a few things straight between us. I get to number the chapters, decide where the paragraphs break, and choose the font. You, in return, get all the gossip. Some of it's kinda stale. Sometimes it's perfectly up-to-date. But I promise it'll be good, either way.

Life is a soap opera, for everyone. Girl's lusting after boy, who's gay and has brain cancer, boy's pet dog gets run over by a convertible driven by his long-gone homophobe father who's come to town because his sixteen-year-old mistress is missing.

So it's an extreme example. But you get my point. And really, really smart people tend to have more of a backstory than their dull counterparts. Probably because they're intelligent enough to figure out that it's more fun to have a history, so they create one for themselves.

Attractive people get stories, too. Mostly because they get laid more. And sleeping around makes for really, really good soap operas.

And attractive, smart people are the ones I have stories about.

So let me number the chapters. And in return, you get the stories.

**Chapter 1**

Yeah, I chickened out on the whole chaptering thing. But who knows? Maybe I'll change the font size next. I'm full of surprises.

My first story is about a pair of two very attractive, very intelligent medical students. Those criteria made them completely unlikable to anyone other than themselves.

Medical students, as a whole, are geeks. It's a fact. Anyone who's willing to spend their lives poking around the orifices and secretions of others for money is either perverted or very, very dedicated. (As a disclaimer, I will say that my greatest goal in life is to be a doctor. Which is true.)

But now, we have two _dedicated _med students who have finished final exams their second year. Like every year, there was a party. Every one of these parties starts the same way. And, come to think of it, many end the same way. A large group of twenty-somethings head back to their apartments or dorms stone-cold drunk.

I'm going to start at the beginning of this story. Generally, that's where I'll start them all.

**PART ONE: I'LL BE THERE FOR YOU**

**Chapter 2**

Lisa Cuddy was in a state of superficial panic. Usually, her nervousness was about grades. Being second in class never suited her. But life had suddenly become about finding the perfect outfit for the party. Red was too kitchy. Grey was too boring. Black was too somber.

Purple. She pulled an outfit from her Ikea dresser she hadn't seen in years: a eggplant-colored denim skirt, low-cut wide-striped cap sleeve sweater, and purple fishnet stockings.

She began to strip off her clothes. A knock on the door didn't faze her.

"I'M COMING!" She said as she got off the last of her school clothes and began to put on the new outfit. Her clothes were on quickly, and she placed several strands of costume jewelry around her neck. The knock came again.

"For god's sake, wait!" Lisa yelled as she dashed into the bathroom to put on some makeup, and, while shoving her heel into her shoes, answered the door.

"Hi," she said, breathlessly. "How are you?" It was Paul, her boyfriend since the beginning of time.

"How're you doing, sweetheart?" he asked with a tinge of a Southern accent, leaning in to peck her cheek. God, she hated that. He took her cool hand in his rough, sweaty one and they walked to the car. It was all Lisa could do to keep from screaming "get off me, get off me!"

But she needed to get the free dinners and company somehow. He was the best route to it.

His car was clean but old, smelling of cologne and Chinese takeout.

"You look fantastic," Paul told her.

"Thanks," she said, strategically not returning the compliment. He was wearing a red flannel shirt and stiff brown cords. Unflattering and unimaginative as always.

The party was dark with loud music and flashing strobe lights. This early on, most couples were crouching in the corner discussing the exam and grinding chips into the carpet. Sort of like junior high.

Then the DJ, a friendly, African-American major in cardiology, played some upbeat, bouncy songs. One by one, couples made their way out and started dancing.

**Chapter 3**

Lisa wasn't in the mood to dance, and it didn't matter. Paul had had two beers already and was working on his third. For all his girth and swagger, Lisa knew him to be easily intoxicated and unable to stop.

Growing up as the son of a Texan oil CEO, Paul got everything he wanted. That included alcohol at age sixteen. Paul'd fallen in love with beer and whiskey the minute he'd tried them. It grossed Lisa out.

So she sat on the couch for a while, sipping from a can of Diet Coke. Across the room, she spotted a fellow couch-sitter. An unfamiliar, young, Jewish-looking man was sitting and drinking a matching soda.

Lisa picked up her drink and headed towards him, taking the long way around the dance floor and sitting down beside the man. He turned and extended a hand.

"I'm James Wilson," he yelled over the music. Cuddy, surprised but pleased with his manners, shook his hand. It was warm but dry, and his grip was firm. She liked him immediately.

"I'm Lisa Cuddy," she responded, taking her volume up a notch to be heard. James nodded.

"Do you want to go into the other room? I can't hear myself think out here." He asked. Lisa nodded.

The party was in a campus apartment. There was the rec room, where the party was going on, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. One bedroom was locked, so they went into the other one. It was uncomfortable, but they were careful to sit on opposite sides of the bed.

"I'm not too big on parties," James began, stating the obvious.

"Who dragged you here?" Lisa asked.

"My girlfriend."

"And…?"

"The locked bedroom."

"Oh." They fell silent for a moment, the only sound the slurping of soda. Something ridiculous came to Lisa's mind.

"Do you want to be in a locked bedroom?" she asked softly, puckering her lips slightly. James studied her for a moment. Lisa was a legend: gorgeous, brilliant, poised. Not someone a geeky, mild-mannered oncology major would sleep with.

But she was offering. Unsure, feeling more awkward than ever, he swallowed.

"Sure."

**Chapter 4**

For every ounce James was uncomfortable, Lisa was smooth and cool. She got up, sat in his lap, and began kissing him, running her hands up and down his back. She wasn't quite sure why she was doing this. Horniness? Boredom? Hormones? It didn't really matter. He was so sweet. So eager.

"You have to do some of the work, you know," Cuddy whispered playfully as she lay on top of him and started to unbutton his shirt. James was gaining confidence, a little.

"Gladly," he said as he reached found the button on her skirt and slid it down her legs. Who was this James Wilson? This was not the man who spent his days with terminal bald children and his pudgy, sallow girlfriend. This was the James Wilson who was about to sleep with Lisa Cuddy.

Lisa kicked their clothing to the end of the bed and got started.

To make a short story even shorter, it was perfect. They fit impeccably, which made for sensations that neither had ever felt before or would feel again. It was hot, sweaty, have-to-stifle-yells (not that anyone would have heard it with all that music) sort of sex.

And they totally, completely forgot about birth control.

Which brings us to my next story. About a month and a half later.

**Chapter 5**

"James!" Lisa yelled, catching him on his way from a chemotherapy course. He whipped around.

"I'm here." He told her, his voice soft and comfortable. "What is it?" His voice brought Lisa, inexplicably, to the point of tears.

"Let's go get a coffee," James suggested, picking up on the droop in her face. They left the building and walked through the snow to a Starbucks. Settled in a corner table with something warm, James faced Lisa again.

"Tell me what's wrong," he said. That really started Lisa crying. She knew the mascara smudges were going to make her look like an emotional raccoon, but she didn't care.

"I'm late," she said.

"I'm not a mind reader," James said, as he took one of her hands. "Late for what?"

"My period." James turned slightly pale.

"How late?"

"Six weeks." James really, really wanted to swear, but knew Lisa couldn't take it. Instead, he took a deep breath.

"What… what are you going to do?" Lisa cried harder, biting her lip till a bead of red formed.

"I'm having an abortion." James nodded. "Do you have an appointment?" Unable to speak, Cuddy shook her head.

"Whenever it is, I'll be there. I'll be there for you." And he gripped her hand harder. Because he would be.

**PART TWO: SYMPATHY ROSES**

**Chapter 6**

How could he have failed again?

He was exhausted. It was three in the morning. Maybe four. Maybe the world had stopped spinning. But one thing was certain.

She was dead.

Her features were sharp in the orange light of the early sun. Long, dark eyelashes covering what was left of the sparkle in her light, speckled brown eyes. A delicate nose, mottled with death, above a soft pair of white-blue lips that contrasted brutally with her dark tan skin. Her naturally lithe body made subtle dips and swells in the blanket.

House and Cara were alone, one last time. He went over to her bed, smelling the last traces of perfume and lime Jell-o. Feeling her dry, powdery skin on his palm and the complimentary roses on her bedside table brush his arm. He noticed a spot of water on her cheek. It was his tear.

Last week, they'd gone on their last date. Triumphantly, she'd wheeled herself into the café. Guys around her had whistled. At a cancer patient! She was beautiful up til the end. And he'd been able to put his arm around her thin shoulders, grinning. _Oh no, _he'd told them,_ She's mine._

But he couldn't save her. How could you love someone that much and not be able to fix everything?

He'd never felt her hair. That was the only part of Cara he didn't know perfectly. House knew every curve, every crevice, every bone. How could he not know her hair? It was the same light brown as her eyes, she'd told him. Curly. Kind of wispy. The photo album showed it'd been thinner when she was younger. She'd curled up in the crook of his arm as they'd flipped through the photographs. He remembered being surprised at how light her body was.

As if she'd just float away from him.

She did.

**Chapter 7**

No one knew Cara. No one knew House. They were two young residents, lost in the vast behemoth of Princeton General Hospital. Even _House _hated the depersonalization of the whole thing. And when Cara died, she was one of dozens that night. It was depressing beyond Prozac.

Neither of them had much money or relatives who spoke to them anymore, so the wedding was dismal and cheap. House purchased her a coffin. That was important.

It was the day of the funeral, and, as tradition dictated, it rained. House put on ill-fitting black clothing and went out to the graveyard. An overweight middle-aged man stood with a shovel. Cara's coffin was next to him.

No one could see House's tears through the rain.

"I love you," he whispered. The burier blew smoke in House's direction.

"I've gotta pack a' roses for ya," he said, handing them to House.

"Sympathies from Princeton General." The card read. House was, momentarily, touched. When he realized they had simply taken the roses from her bedside table, he threw them on the ground.

"I don't need your sympathy roses," He muttered angrily, and motioned to the impatient man. "You can start digging."

That was the last House ever saw of Cara. That last, rain-blurred image of her coffin. The woman he'd expected to grow old with, to have children with, to fight with and love. His best friend in the whole world. And that was how it ended.

When Stacey told Cameron that he'd been the same before his leg, she was right. That was the moment House changed. The moment part of him was lifted into the cold, wet earth and the digger walked away.

**Chapter 8**

He could hear Cara's voice as he collapsed in his mildewy apartment. _Get dry, you're going to catch cold. _But he couldn't listen to her nagging anymore. For the first time ever, he missed it.

He tried everything. Tricking himself into thinking she was alive, telling himself he'd move on. He didn't want to do anything ever again. House wanted to lie on the couch until he rotted. That way, he'd get to be with Cara.

But he'd pee first. House got up and stumbled into his bathroom. He noticed the razor sitting on his sink.

_You can't do that, _he told himself. _Watch me, _the other half of his brain said. House pulled up and refastened his pants, sat on the toilet seat cover, and picked up the razor.

_Take a deep breath. Once you get this over with, you'll feel much better. _It came eerily naturally to him, and he teased the razor along the soft skin of his forearm. Little wet red lines burst to the surface, burning.

_Good. You deserve this._

More lines. Pressing a bit harder. He was getting rid of everything, all the emptiness inside his was easily coming out. There were crimson drips running down his arm, all the way past the elbow now. Criss-crossing. House couldn't stop. The give of flesh, the burst of pain were addictive. They were an opiate. They dulled the world around him so he could live in his.

House held his arm up to the mirror, seeing the blood that pooled in the crook of his elbow. Where Cara had been. The cutting was making up for her.

He wiped away the blood and picked up the phone. When the hooker arrived, she knocked.

"Hey," the blond, voluptuous woman loudly chewing gum greeted him. "I'm Karra." It felt, to House, like the woman was spitting on Cara's grave.

"No," he told her. "No, you're not." And he slammed the door and locked it.

**PART THREE: PART OF US**

**Chapter 9**

"Take a deep breath," Zachary said, poising the needle right above Allison's right buttock and quickly plunging it in. She gave a little yelp as he punctured her skin.

She sat back down, massaging the spot.

"You get all the glamour jobs, don't you?" she said. Zachary nodded, tossing the syringe in the trash.

"Oh yeah." He sat beside her.

"You know, most women with your disease are fat and hairy. Chimps, almost." Zachary said.

"Watch it." She said coldly. That was a sensitive spot of hers. How her disease sometimes affected others. Just because she'd gotten lucky was no reason to gloat. Zachary looked up at her, surprised.

"Sorry," he said softly. Allison was staring off into space, not accepting the apology. Her eyes were welling up. Dammit. She couldn't keep from crying these days.

"Let's get something to eat," Zachary suggested, appropriately embarrassed. He got up and headed towards the kitchen.

Allison had a moment to brood. Was she really doing the right thing? She was only twenty-eight. Was it time to be on all of these fertility meds?

Maybe she was doing it to prove the odds wrong. Polycystic ovary syndrome wasn't sterilizing. She could produce a little creature with her brown curls and Zachary's blue eyes just as well as the next woman could produce a brown-eyed redhead.

Zachary came back in with two microwaved pizzas. Allison's very favorite guilty pleasure. But as soon as she smelled them, a wave of nausea hit her. Hand over her mouth, Allison ran to the bathroom and vomited all over the tiled floor. Three times. When she stopped, she looked up with wet red eyes and a horrendous stomach ache to find Zachary rubbing her back.

"We did it." He said. "We did it."

**Chapter 10**

Pink. Pink was the most beautiful color in the world. One tiny, colorful strip could make a grown woman happy enough to jump up and down. Allison carefully laid the pregnancy test on the edge of the sink and ran out into the living room. Zachary seemed nonchalant, reading glasses perched on his nose and flipping through a book of recipes, but he too was excited as hell.

"Yes?" he asked his voice rising. Cameron nodded and lept into his arms. They hugged for a moment.

"Let's get you an appointment with Dr. Shocker," Zachary said.

"The obstetrician. _Yes,_" Allison hugged Zachary again. His hair was starting to grow back in, tiny salt-and-pepper spots appearing on his scalp. It looked like he'd gotten a buzz cut, not like he was getting over cancer.

Zachary went into the kitchen to figure out the scheduling, and Allison sat on the couch. She found herself placing a hand on her abdomen. Was that a protective reflex? Maybe. She felt like a child on her birthday. She was going to have a baby! Already, Allison was thinking of names.

Zachary came back into the living room again.

"Next Wednesday." He announced proudly, his blue eye twinkling.

"Thanks," Allison said. "Thanks." She pulled him into a kiss.

"If I got a kiss every time I figured out the logistics…" he said. Allison put her index finger up to his lips.

"Thanks for the _baby_," she said, catching his mouth again. He squeezed her. There was a little piece of them inside her, and he wasn't about to let that go.

It was perfect. Everything was perfect.

But nothing stays that way. So I'm going to go three months into the future.

**Chapter 11**

Most women don't show four months or so into a pregnancy, but slim Allison was already getting a slight bulge. That was exciting. What was not so exciting was the 24/7 stomach bug. She was getting an impressive case of morning sickness.

That day it was especially bad. As she slowly came to consciousness, Allison felt her GI tract touch her throat and plummet back down again, sending last night's supper into her esophagus. Turning a fascinating shade of green, she ran out of her bedroom and deposited the last day's food into the toilet.

Panting a bit, she wiped her mouth with toilet paper, flushed the toilet, and went back into the bedroom. There was Zachary. Blue.

"Zach. _Zach!" _ She became increasingly desperate. No pulse. His arm was perfectly room temperature. Rigor mortis had set in. He'd been dead for a while.

Allison collapsed with sobs. Zachary had recovered from cancer. But for what? Just to be taken away by a heart attack.

This was a dream. But the frostiness of Zachary's hand told her it wasn't.

Somehow, in the fog of desperation and grief, Allison's focused on one horrible though. She had to get rid of Zachary's baby. So Zachary could at least rest in peace, without a piece of his soul inside Allison. She had to let the baby loose.

Tears blurring her vision, Allison climbed the staircase. With one horrible wail, she let go of the banister and tumbled down the wooden steps.

By the time she reached the bottom, her body was bruised and stinging. But that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was that all that remained of Zachary was staining her nightgown.

And when Allison realized what she'd done, there was only one thing she wanted to do. Throw herself down the stairs again and again until she too became a bloody, unsalvageable mess.

**PART FOUR: VALIUM**

**Chapter 12**

Humans are incredibly resilient. We can get through anything. We're never the same afterwards, sure, but we bounce back. Because we'll love again. Maybe. Or maybe not. But life always goes on. Always. If not for you, then for those around you. The world never stops turning. Not for an instant.

Some things are harder to get over than others. There was a prolific jerk out there who said "it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." That's not always right. Hardly anything is right in all circumstances.

I have several more stories to tell you. Several.

There are several prolific jerks out there who have said things along the lines of "love is insanity."

I've written about love already. It's time I filled out the other half of the equation.

Let's give a little background first. Insanity is unique to each person who lives it. Some future "crazy" people could be your cousin, or that nice woman down the street who makes meatloaf every Thursday. In some cases, seemingly normal people just snap. They start yelling and breaking mirrors, muscular men with tranquilizers are called in, and no one sees the person again.

Then there's the person who everyone's been saying is "losing it" forever. Seven years, people mutter, "That girl's a whack job. Watch out."

But that doesn't make it any less surprising when it finally happens.

**Chapter 13**

"Mom?" Robert called out, dumping his briefcase on the linoleum in his well-lit Australian kitchen. "Mom?"

The only words that came to mind were obscene. Robert raced into his mother's bedroom.

It had finally happened.

His mother was spread out on the comforter, surrounded by a few whiskey bottles. That was nothing unusual. That had been why his father'd left. What struck him was the presence of a tiny white pill container.

Heart doing jumping jacks in his chest, Robert picked it up.

Valium.

She had it for her panic attacks. She'd take a half a tablet and calm down quickly. Otherwise, it could take hours before she stopped screaming and throwing things.

But he knew she'd OD'd this time. Her lips were slightly blue, she grasped for things that weren't there. Robert picked up the phone and dialed 9-1-1.

"213 Thornbush Lane. My mother's overdosed on pain meds." A cold voice on the other line answered.

"We'll send the paramedics." And the line went dead. Leaving Robert with his cold, limp mother praying she could hold on.

But wondering if she wanted to anymore.

**Chapter 14**

They pumped Mrs. Chase's stomach and she became conscious three days later. Robert stayed by her bed, the whole time. It wasn't out of love. He hated her. For destroying his life. For manipulating the world so that everything had become about her.

He stayed because he knew his mother had no one else. And even Robert knew that no one should be alone in a place as horrible and institutional as a hospital.

Several hours after Mrs. Chase came to consciousness, she was taken out of the room for a psych assessment.

Eyes roving a bit, mouth slack, she was returned to the room just minutes later. Her behavior and the expression on the doctor's face told Robert that things had not gone well.

"Can I… can I see you in the hall for a moment?" The doctor asked. She was a shapely, attractive young woman with strange, pine-green eyes. Robert gulped and nodded. He felt disgusting next to her. During his vigil, he had not had a chance to shower or change his clothes. But he knew he had to follow her into the hallway.

"I'm Doctor Hathaway. I need to tell you something." Robert nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

"Your mother is very ill," she said softly. "She's…" But suddenly, outrage boiled up in Robert. The stress from the past few days had taken its toll.

"She's fine!" he lied, and, unable to process what he was doing, he smacked Dr. Hathaway across the face. Shocked, she walked as fast as she could away from him.

She left Robert with a stinging palm and the thought that he was just as crazy as his mother.

**Chapter 15**

Robert remained frozen until a burly man appeared with a small cup in his hand.

"Drink this, son," he heard the man's deep voice say, resting one hand on Robert's small shoulder. Unable to think anymore, he downed the cup in one gulp. The world slipped away from him. It was like looking at the scene through the wrong end of a telescope. He was drowning in a pot of warm bathwater. Everything was soft, comfortable.

He felt, vaguely, two strong arms lift him and carry him into a hospital room, before he starting losing consciousness.

As he slipped away from the world, he heard Dr. Hathaway talking to the man.

"What'd you give him?" she asked. The man sighed.

"Valium."

"That's enough irony for all of us," Dr. Hathaway said.

And that was when Robert fell into a full stupor.

**Chapter 16**

Every time Robert awoke, he became so panicked that they had to put him out again. For the brief moments he was conscious, he hated himself. Couldn't he deal with this? Apparently not. A full grown man who had to be under sedation because his mother was sick. The nurses didn't know that if they let him wake up, he would slit his wrists in self-hatred. Self-hatred was a torturous, feminine problem. That _added _to the shame of feeling it.

But Robert couldn't help himself.

When they let him come off the Valium for the sixth time, he was okay enough to not need another emergency shot. Immediately, he started looking for Mrs. Chase.

One of the nurses caught his arm on the way down the hall.

"Do you need something, honey?"

"I'd like to visit the patient in 221. Mrs. Wendy Chase?" He struggled to keep his voice steady. The nurse shook her head, transferring her hand to Robert's shoulder.

"I'm sorry, dear." Robert felt his blood run cold.

"Sorry? Sorry for what?" There was ice rising in his throat.

"Why we go back to your room? This should be discussed privately." Feeling separate from his body, Robert accepted the nurse's suggestion.

He sat down on his bed, unable to relax.

"What happened?" he asked, his accent thicker than it ever had been. He started slipping to his lower-class pronunciation when he got upset.

"They couldn't calm her down. Valium, which knocked you right out, didn't do a thing. Nothing worked. She started waving needles around, stabbing the doctors with it. We couldn't transfer her to a hospital, she was so wound up. Three security guards tried to get the syringes away from her and got stabbed. Lots of people got hurt. She could have killed someone. And when they finally gave her enough sedatives to calm her down, it stopped her heart." Robert was numb. Completely numb. Like the nurse was just trying to trick him into believing her. Like this was just a horrible joke.

"I'm sorry, love." She patted his shoulder, an empty gesture of affection. "Wish there was somethin' we coulda done." With that, she left.

Robert listened to her shoes echo down the hall.

She had to be lying. There was no other explanation.

**PART FIVE: YOU CAN'T GO HOME**

**Chapter 17**

The warehouse was grimy and it smelled of mildew. So much dust had accumulated that you couldn't tell what color the hard, cold floor was. They didn't want to be here. But they didn't really have choice. Buying their own place was a joke. And the idea of their folks letting them back in the house was even more preposterous.

Somehow, they always found the money for that one thing. Who knew how? Eric didn't ask. He just took their money and found a dealer.

The four guys huddled in a corner. It was freezing.

"You got it, man?" one of them asked Eric. Eric was by far the smallest and wimpiest of the group, but they looked up to him. Who had the courage and the brains to outwit the cops? Not them, certainly. They did a lot more stuff than Eric. That took its toll on your continuation of cognitive functions.

"Yup." Eric produced two plastic baggies: one of white powder, one of dark, crumbly leaves. "Hard stuff or soft?" He asked.

"Hard," they answered, in unintentional unison. After a few punches on each other's biceps, one hand reached out, grabbed the white baggie, and started passing it around. Eric secretly hated the stuff. He'd tried it a few times, hoping that he'd learn to enjoy drugs, but he felt awful every time. And then his mother caught wind of what he was doing and kicked him out of the house. All for something he hated anyway.

But that was irreversible. He'd pretend to snort cocaine, inject heroin, smoke pot. The rest of them were too stoned to realized that Eric was, in fact, clean.

Not that anyone in his family believed that.

**Chapter 18**

All the guys were totally drugged out, having snorted enough to kill a horse. They'd started in on the pot, but the previous drugs had made them sufficiently uncoordinated that they kept putting the sloppily rolled joints in their noses and singing their fingers.

"What do you want to do when we get outta this dump?" someone asked.

"We're gonna?" another slurred. This started off a round of high-pitched, unnatural laughter. Eric thought about it for a second.

"I'm going to be a doctor," he said. He got good grades in school. There was no reason why not. That got them laughing again.

"Man, you must be real high," the third commented, his eyes red and blood dripping slowly from his nose.

"He wants to be a nuor-lee-gest, right? So you can see what's goin' on in our heads? Well, you ain't gonna find nothing." More screechy giggling.

Eric noticed that their grammar got steadily worse as the drug hit their bloodstreams. It was sickening, really.

"Nope, you ain't," someone echoed. Eric felt sick.

"I'll be back," he said.

"Don't go bustin' us," someone warned.

"I won't." No. He wasn't going to bust them. He just needed to get out of that warehouse.

It was a fairly cold night, and the horrible old winter coat Eric wore did little to defend him from it. It didn't matter. He had one moment, one shining moment, away from the smoke, the bloody noses, the random bursts of spine-tingling laughter.

He passed car after car. An old Honda caught his eye. The door was open. The keys were sitting on the driver's seat. What kind of idiot would… But suddenly, Foreman saw it as a chance to get the hell out of this cesspool. So he got inside, softly shut the door, turned the ignition, and started driving. Out. But he heard yelling behind him. Then sirens. And he kept driving.

He wasn't going to stop until he reached the very end. Until he got to a neighborhood where the roads didn't smell of vomit and the children got new clothes every year.

The police caught him.

**Chapter 19**

But he did reach that neighborhood. Not that day, certainly. Not that year. Not even_ five_ years later, as he barely scraped by with financial aid and a free place to sleep. It took him a full decade to reach that neighborhood. The fact was, it was a very long drive from where he'd been.

He didn't realize where he was, at first. But it was one day, as he went out to get the mail in a new suede jacket, went back to his condo, rested on the leather couch in his professionally decorated living room, and he found the paycheck (one out of countless) from PPTH.

Eric laughed as he thought about how much weed it would have bought him. And then he froze. He was back in the day when things were measured in bittersweet scented baggies. When a grain of that precious whiteness spilled, a needle that slipped and emptied its contents on the floor, a joint that was crushed and destroyed: those were the worst things that could happen. When your whole existence revolved around your next meal and your next high.

Sure, that car had gotten him time in the "big house". But it had started his life over. He'd risen from that existence.

There was a loud giggling outside his condo, and he looked out the window. It was a beautiful day. And he caught a glimpse of a pretty blonde woman, about thirty years old, and her golden-curled daughter.

Even from a distance, Foreman could tell: the girl had on brand-new clothes.


End file.
